BHOPAL: Soon you may be spared the trouble of negotiating your way through city's chock-a-block avenues.Thanks to a Bhopal-based engineer - Sanjeev Sharma - who put to good use his 7-month training in Israel to develop a cost-effective model of a self-driven car. The car, equipped with motion-detecting sensors and cameras, would navigate on its own.Earlier this month, at this year's CII India Innovation Summit in Bengaluru, Sanjeev's "dream innovation" was quiet the talking point.Technocrats from the world over, who had descended for the event, appreciated the concept. Not surprisingly, Sanjeev bagged an award at National Pitch Perfect competition there."It was in 2009 that I saw the students of MIT presenting a self-driven car at a competition. It was highly expensive, as each of the motion-detecting sensors used in that car cost about USD 75,000. Since then, I also wanted to develop something like this. It was during my 7-month training in motion detection technology and robotics in Israel that I learnt the tricks of the trade. After completing my post-graduation from Canada, I came back to India to make such a car," said Sanjeev, who has been working on his innovation for the past 9 years, with a team of engineers from Bhopal "My team and I developed an algorithm that can convert the 2D images clicked by ordinary cameras into 3D images. The innovation in perception technology developed by us allows it to measure the distance between objects and spot obstacles on the roads to help it navigate through traffic in India. This was a major challenge for us," said Sanjeev, who studied at IIT-Roorkee.Sanjeev is not stopping at this. He now plans to develop self-driven drones and tanks for the army."The main aim behind developing the less-expensive technology is to facilitate its use in defence forces. It will be a great breakthrough in defence technology, if we are able to deploy such self-driven vehicles. It can also be used in agriculture and other fields," said Sanjeev.

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